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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826849">Unforgiving</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/laraanita/pseuds/laraanita'>laraanita</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Digital Justice [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blaze Hybrid Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Burning, Gen, Knight Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), M/M, Violence, bringing back the #blamesunset, i am so happy those are tags, i hope you are read to cry, onesided georgenap, this is basically torture</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:35:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826849</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/laraanita/pseuds/laraanita</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sapnap's hands reach for Dream, wrapping around the tanned line of his throat and he can't help but relish the gasp of pain from Dream's parched lips as his skin burns under his hands. Dream thrashes in his grasp, the chains binding his arms rattling as the once proud man shudders and whimpers at just a touch from flame-wreathed fingers.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Digital Justice [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2192961</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unforgiving</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please please please have read the tags and warnings before you read any further. You probably also want to have read the first in this series, Connection, or this may not make much sense.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It's been three days and Sapnap still can't breathe without the crushing guilt on his shoulders that he's here to draw breath when George never will.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Three days in a lava-lit room, five paces by six, barely enough to harbour his tall form, three walls of obsidian, one wall of lava. Three days of pacing, of waiting, of swearing and cursing himself hoarse once the shock had faded. There's gashes and puncture wounds on his neck from where he'd shoved himself against prongs of tridents, bruises covering his face, a fading black eye, a lip split in two spots. He's lucky they hadn't broken any of his bones when he fought like a man possessed, desperately trying to reach George in those long agonising minutes, even when he'd fallen still, hanging limp and unresponsive with drying tears on his cheeks. He hadn't given up, had stopped fighting only when they physically dragged him away and off to a cell of his own. He'd almost managed to shove Ponk into the curtain of lava surrounding his own cell and had been beaten into unconsciousness for his trouble. His ribs still bear the ache from that, but he can breathe past it now without wanting to keel over and that's good enough for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He checks the clock on the wall, sees that it's nearing midnight, and decides that now is as good a time as any for a jail break. He's not planning on a full escape, what’s the point? Dream is in here with him, and George...</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap inhales slowly through the guilt and loss, blinking back burning tears and forcing down the thought of George, his friend, his king...</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You'll always be my king, George.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some knight in shining armour he turned out to be, he thinks bitterly. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gods, George, I'm so sorry</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I'll make it up to you, somehow</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Preferably with blood and fire if he has anything to say about it. It's all he's been able to think about the past three days when he can tear his mind from the gaping hole in his heart where George used to be. Who deserves to die, to choke on their blood, to struggle for breath like George did? Who deserves to burn and die screaming in agony for this atrocity? Maybe he can't remember every face who was there that night, maybe he won't be able to cause them all just as much pain as they inflicted on George, but he knows the main players. He knows who tied George up, he knows who dug fingers into pale arms enough to leave behind bruises, knows who dragged him around by the soft hair atop his head...</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Who pushed him out to hang over the lava to choke to death.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap has a list and the thought of marking each name off it one by one in a vengeance-fuelled bloodlust is enough to send satisfaction curling through his veins, chased by the bittersweet thought that it's all for George and George won't ever know. Would George want this? He thinks so. George always did have a darker side to him, one he so rarely let out to play. Sapnap wonders if George would have done this for him, and with the same tired acknowledgement he's so used to feeling when it comes to wondering about George, he thinks that he might not have bothered. It's fine. Sapnap is used to things between them being a bit one-sided. This is just...more of that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stretches out his arms overhead, scowling as he bumps the ceiling with his wrists, and puts himself through a few stretches. It helps calm the emotions bubbling up inside him, soothes the aches and pains of battered and stiff muscles. He's really not sure how this is going to work out for him. He knows how he'd like it to go, but it's been a very long time since he's put his dormant side to use. It's something he's uncomfortable with, something he'd strove to keep hidden, under wraps. He's never told anyone, not even Dream and George, and apparently he'd hidden even the latent side effects of it enough that Dream hadn't picked up on it, otherwise he'd likely have had a very different cell.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lava can't hurt a blaze, after all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap exhales slowly as he moves through a stretch and a curl of flame flickers over his tongue, the taste of soot and ash familiar and comforting, like the smile of an old friend. He licks the taste from his lips and breathes in fuel for his fire, exhales a stronger flame, inhales, exhales, and his body </span>
  <em>
    <span>burns</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Veins light up under his skin with a golden glow, lancing down from his lungs along his limbs to the tips of his fingers and toes, only slightly dimmed by the dirty clothing he's been left in. A groan escapes him as welcome heat consumes him, orange and yellow light washing out his vision before it settles down as a dim glow behind his eyelids when they flutter shut.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Inhale. Exhale.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Heat bubbles down his thighs, his calf muscles, manifesting as flames licking up from the soles of his feet, curling over his ankles to consume his footwear, more fuel for the growing fireball inside him. He rolls his head back, neck cracking as he lets the fire take hold, feels it surge and roar around and inside him to the beat of his heart.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Inhale. Exhale.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He feels his feet leave the obsidian floor behind and curls his legs up just a little, a bark of laugh escaping him when he doesn't crash on the harsh ground below. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, we can do this. Let's fucking go</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All thoughts of vengeance and retribution flee from his mind the moment he breaks through the lava flow and sees George still hanging there. It's almost enough to quench the burning need to inflict pain and suffering on those who did this in the first place but he manages to keep ahold of the fire within, keep pushing himself through and over the lava surrounding him. There a choked gasp from the cell a short ways away that Sapnap ignores as he floats over to the hanging corpse of his best friend, his king, his-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A broken keen escapes him as he passes in front of George and meets those blank eyes, lifeless and dry from the heat of this hell which has not been kind to him. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It's so unfair</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Sapnap thinks desperately as he reaches out a trembling hand to brush over George's cheek only to recoil at the waxen sensation. He shudders and blinks back tears– he can't lose focus, he can't– he came here with a purpose in mind, a job to do.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It doesn't mean he has to leave George here.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap pushes himself a little higher, reaches out with a hand and calls his flame from within. A burst of blue flame licks along his fingers and with his other arm wrapping around the still form, he uses the fire to burn through the rope keeping him up. The sudden weight makes Sapnap curse and snuff the flame in his hand so he can grab George without burning him, without hurting him more than they already did.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I got you Georgie, I got you,” he whispers, clutching the surprisingly lax form close to his chest. He thought bodies went stiff after– still, he doesn't think about it too hard, turning his attention to the cell ahead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dream kneels there, still chained in the same position Sapnap last saw him in, kneeling with arms pulled down at an angle, chains affixed to a gleaming enchanted ring that doesn't seem to be all that solid despite being the one thing keeping him in place. He's not wearing his mask, Sapnap notes absently as he drifts over an ocean of lava with George cradled close to his chest. When he reaches the obsidian cell, he alights on the floor, ignores Dream's stuttered words, and turns away to lay George reverently down on the black glass. He gets caught up in carefully unwinding the noose, the thick harsh knots binding George's arms behind his back, in brushing off tiny hardened pieces of lava, the old tear stains from his cheeks. A shaky exhale leaves him as he stares at those dead eyes once more, recalls watching the light go out of them from a distance, the agony in them– and the fury is back again, surging up within him and demanding he do something to fix this. Fire cloaks his form as he rises to his feet and up, hovering a few inches over the cell floor. There's a sound from Dream and Sapnap whirls on his target.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap has never seen Dream look so...he doesn't know how to describe it. He tells himself that the awe and loss he sees there don't matter, that what's important there is the flicker of fear he spies in the way Dream pulls as his restraints, leaning back from the rapidly approaching living flame that is Sapnap.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There's no escape.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap's hands reach for Dream, wrapping around the tanned line of his throat and he can't help but relish the gasp of pain from Dream's parched lips as his skin burns under his hands. Dream thrashes in his grasp, the chains binding his arms rattling as the once proud man shudders and whimpers at just a touch from flame-wreathed fingers. The stench of burning flesh meets Sapnap's nose and he bares his teeth down at Dream in, watches those bright green eyes widen in terror and pain, lips parted as he gasps for breath-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's everything he never wanted to see in Dream's eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The flames around him flicker as he recoils, feet hitting the lava warmed obsidian with a soft noise and Sapnap stumbles back, breathing almost as harshly Dream is. He stares from Dream, doubled over his chained arms and coughing hard, to his hands, flame covered and faintly blackened with what he realises is his friend's burnt skin. He wants to scrub his hands until they're red, raw and clean from the charred skin fragments. He wants to wrap his hands around Dream's neck and burn away everything. He wants to throw up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His attention is dragged back to the chained figure at his feet by a wheezing sound, and for a moment he thinks he's already burned through Dream's throat and half his windpipe and that's what's causing the sound, but then he sees Dream sit up, leaning back and baring his throat. It's easy to see the prints of Sapnap's hands where they had wrapped around the length of his neck, easy to see the difference where it was burned at his touch and where it was just flames licking at skin. The handprints are harsher, thicker, edged with charred black ridges and looking slick where it's started to burn the muscle underneath. It looks painful, the way the burns are stretched over his Adam's apple, bobbing as Dream coughs out a weak laugh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I – heh, knew you c-couldn't do it, Pandas.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And just like that his weakened flame </span>
  <em>
    <span>roars</span>
  </em>
  <span> to life once more, and Sapnap finds his nausea at his own actions far away. It's so very easy to reach out and grasp Dream's lank hair in a flaming fist and drag the wheezing prisoner up as far as his chains will let him. He ignores the smell of burning hair and grease, and drinks in the way Dream's body shudders as his free hand grasps Dream's jaw, admiring the flinch as his fingers dig into soft flesh and sear away freckles. Dream tries to pull back but this time Sapnap doesn't let him go, just grips his hair tighter and lets his fire grow around them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What's the matter Dream? Scared of a little fire?” The blaze hybrid doesn't give him a chance to respond to the taunt, releasing his jaw only to lay his hand on Dream's cheek. It would be a gentle touch in any other scenario, fond, loving. Here it only makes Dream flinch as his skin is scorched on contact with the blazing lines of fire running over and through Sapnap's skin, leaving behind a faint impression of the glowing veins. “It getting too hot for you?” Sapnap mocks him, baring his teeth and exhaling a curl of flame too close to Dream's face as he leans in. “It getting hard to breathe through the pain? Through the heat? Can't get a full breath?” He pulls on the singed hair strands, unable to stop a laugh when half of it comes away, burnt and crispy between his fingers. He tosses them aside and then releases Dream, setting himself down on the obsidian floor once more as Dream gasps through the pain Sapnap's inflicted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap's moving away, returning to George's side where he'd tossed the ropes earlier when Dream coughs and speaks up, his voice a gravelly croak, “S-Sap, c'mon, I-I didn't-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> Dream?!” Sapnap whirls on him, flames ballooning out around him in a corona of white and blue fury, the oppressive heat making Dream hunch closer to the cooler ground. “You didn't what? Didn't think before you decided to go fucking insane? Didn't realise that we were the ones who were going to suffer because for your your fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>lies</span>
  </em>
  <span> about not having attachments, when literally everyone knows the truth?” He kicks the ropes closer to Dream's form, barely having the presence of mind to guide his fire away from them before he's reaching out to grasp the netherite chains. It takes barely a thought to focus his fire down through his arms and out along the enchanted metal. It takes the heat well, the glimmering metal glowing dim at first but steadily brighter and Dream's breath hitches as the heat begins to reach him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pandas please-”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Please isn't gonna cut it Dream,” He watches the netherite begin to glow brighter and brighter, his burning gaze drinking in the way Dream's breathing quickens as the heat builds. “Please didn't save George, please didn't save Tommy.” Sapnap bares his teeth, unable to hold back a laugh as Dream winces and recoils from the flames pouring out his mouth with his words. “The difference between you and them? You deserve exactly what you're getting, Dream. You deserve to burn in hell, and I'm gonna put you there.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sap – Sapnap please – </span>
  <em>
    <span>please</span>
  </em>
  <span> don't do this!” Dream pleads, face twisting in pain and pulling at the fresh burns. “George wouldn't want you to – he – he'd tell you to stop!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap can't help the full bellied laugh he gives at that, liquid fire dribbling down from the corners of his eyes. “This isn't what George would want?” he releases the chains, lets blue flames engulf his arms before he lashes out, backhanding Dream across his unburnt cheek. There's a scream of pain from the man who was once his friend and yet all Sapnap feels is vindication. “George would want to be alive!” This time he curls his fist and drives it into the side of Dream's head, the impact sending a thrill down his spine. “George didn't want to be fucking murdered to punish </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>! George never wanted you to go fucking psychotic and tear us apart! Neither of us did!” Unable to help himself, he grabs Dream's battered face in between his hands, drinking in the glorious sight of Dream's skin blackening and tears rolling down the ruined curve of his cheek. How many times had he watched George reach out and brush over it, over skin or mask? How many times had he bitterly fought down the wish that George would touch him like that, with even an ounce of the adoration he gave to Dream? “You have no idea what George would want Dream. And you don't care either.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I – I do – please Sap please -”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, Dream.” Sapnap banishes the flames from his hands, leaving only the dimly glowing lines across his palms and fingers. He pulls back, leaving Dream crying and shaking at his feet as he reaches for the rope that had been the last thing George had felt before he was stolen from him. Sapnap's feet are quiet on the floor as he pads around, the flames burning away the pools of crying obsidian before they can touch his skin. The rope he wraps around the palms of his hands, leaving it slack in the middle as he stops behind Dream's trembling form.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You wanna know how I know that Dream? Cause if you gave a shit, about him or about me, then you never would have let this happen.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He brings the rope down in front of Dream's face to let him see. The moment Dream understands what it is that he's being shown, he struggles and pulls harshly on the heated chains still holding him down. Sapnap lets him, just for a moment, a predator toying with his trapped prey. He wants Dream afraid, terrified, wants him to know what end awaits him. Just like George did. When Dream starts to whine out broken pleas, Sapnap pulls the rope taut against the burned skin of Dream's neck, lifts it up so it's jammed under his jaw, and holds it tight as he lets himself begin to rise in the air once more. Dream chokes on his words, dragged up by the murderous rope at his throat and pulled back down to earth by the scorching chains around his arms. Sapnap doesn't let up as he listens to the pathetic wheezing, the cut off gurgles, as he watches Dream's legs jerk and twitch against the floor in a futile attempt to get leverage and gain even a gasp of air. He holds Dream tight against his chest, coaxing his fire to a low burn, not wanting it to end too quickly. He wants Dream to linger, to hope for some kind of respite, for someone to swoop in and save him like George must have till the end. He feels it when the fight begins to fade, when Dream begins to give up, and leans his mouth down to a blackened ear, whispering, “I hope you never find peace. I hope you go to hell, and I hope you find yourself in the worst layer. I hope they kill you over and over again. I hope it hurts. I hope they take everything from you, like you took him from me. I hope you rot in hell, Dream. And when it's my turn to die, I hope they let me have a turn at you before they punish me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He feels the last shudders of life leave Dream's corpse and he doesn't let go. He feels the dead weight of his once friend go still in his arms and he doesn't let go. He doesn't release the choking grip on the rope, keeping it there for another solid minute just to be sure the bastard isn't going to be walking away from it this time. Finally, arms shaking from the effort of holding the weight of another being up for so long, he releases the rope and watches with a curious emptiness in his chest as the corpse slumps over and remains still. In the back of his mind, something screams and wails in horror at what he's done, what he's turned into. It's everything he never wanted to be, exactly why he never gave into his baser instincts to burn, to blaze wildly out of control and consume everything in wildfire.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What's stopping him now? What's holding him back? Everything keeping him down here is gone, what's the point of staying his hand? Again the voice in the back of his mind crops up, and he thinks for a moment of soft hoodies and beanies, of holding hands, of two voices rising with his in laughter that he hasn't heard in far too long. It fades fast behind the rising urge to burn it all down, to see everything a blackened husk, all that these people hold dear turned into screaming fuel for the grief burning inside him. His fire leaks out of him, white hot droplets of plasma rolling down his cheeks as he makes his way to George. A corona of blue and white engulfs them as he cradles George in his arms, crying tears into brown locks that begin to catch and burn even as Sapnap struggles to control himself. As much as he wants to keep George close and carry him far from here, he still has a task to accomplish. Still has fuel to burn.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sapnap places a dry kiss on George's forehead, wipes away the remains of his scorching tears, and lays George down once more.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I'll be back soon Georgie. I promise.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay... I will... admit...</p><p>I was gonna have Dream survive! I was! I had a third part planned out where he'd escape, he was gonna have used the ropes that hung George to kill Sam with and then make his escape and kill the rest of the folks who killed George! But then he murdered a small child and I needed some catharsis.</p><p>So yeah. No third part. Dream is gone, crab rave! Sapnap is probably off to murder people.</p><p>Beta'd by itsyagirl and sunset, thank you friends :3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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